The Big Bad Wolf Murder, page 10
It was cozy and clean, decorated in black, white, and red, with flowers in small glass vases on each table to add some scent. Framed photos above the lunch counter depicted a male and female wolf, both wearing aprons, posing proudly with Fillan in front of the diner, working in the kitchen, and seated at the counter, drinking milkshakes.
“You really do want to be a chef,” she said.
“Of course,” he replied. “I’ve been helping Mom and Dad out for years, but I really want to open my own place. Five stars. The best in the whole city.”
She smiled. “Do it, and I’ll be your first customer.”
“Roast beef sandwich with all the trimmings?”
“You remembered.” Then a sudden realization hit her. “But you’re vegetarian! And I bought you a raw lamb chop at Fangbrook. I’m so sorry. No wonder you didn’t eat it.”
He shrugged. “You were only trying to help, and it smelled fresh. Maybe I should find out who their supplier is.”
“From what I overheard, it’s probably the Oma Gang.”
Fillan’s mouth dropped open. “The crime ring? I told you that place was bad news.”
“At least that’s one problem we don’t have to deal with.” Ruby drummed her fingers on the laminated tabletop. “Do you think Charlotte will come?”
“She’s already here.”
The voice from the kitchen made them both start. Framed by the serving hatch, her elbows on the counter, was Charlotte Grimm. She held up Roselyn’s handkerchief with the lipstick note on it, now rather smeared.
“Sorry to startle you, but when I get a cryptic invitation to a secret meeting in the middle of the night, I figure I’m expected to sneak in through the back.” She stuffed the handkerchief into her pocket. “This had better be good.”
* * *
Fillan arrived at the table carrying a tray loaded with food. “Veggie hot dogs, fries, onion rings, and three ice-cream sundaes,” he announced.
Ruby’s eyes lit up at the sight. “Amazing.” She had taken the time to wash up in the diner’s small restroom, and even patched her wound with a bandage from a first aid kit in the kitchen.
Charlotte, meanwhile, sat on the bench opposite Ruby, peering out at the street from between the curtains, which were now closed. “I hope you realize the risk I’m taking here,” she said. “You two are a hot ticket right now. Breck would slap me in handcuffs and throw away the key just for talking to you.”
“We know the feeling,” Ruby replied. “But there are some questions we really need to ask you.”
“Me first,” said Charlotte. “Did you murder Alarick?”
“No,” Ruby replied. “And we didn’t attack Marceline.”
“In fact, she sent us to you,” added Fillan, sliding onto the bench beside Ruby.
Charlotte’s eyebrows rose. “Interesting.” She pulled a notebook and pen from inside her coat and flipped the notebook open. “Start at the beginning, and don’t skip a thing.”
It took half an hour for them to recount everything that had happened since their first meeting in the Hunter’s Den. By the time they had finished, both their stomachs and Charlotte’s notebook were a lot fuller. She flipped the book shut, sat back, and stared hard at them both.
“I knew something smelled fishy,” she said.
“That’s probably us,” said Fillan. “We’re also cabbagey, but I promise I washed my hands before handling the food.”
“No, I mean this whole situation stinks of a setup,” Charlotte replied. “I just couldn’t be certain until I’d heard your side of the story.”
Ruby leaned forward, planting her elbows on the table. “Now that we’ve shared everything we know, what can you tell us about the paper mill? Marceline said there’s a plan, and whatever it is, we’re certain it has something to do with Alarick’s murder.”
Charlotte picked the last remaining onion ring from her plate and took a bite. “The plan was supposed to be a secret. Until tomorrow.”
“Why, what happens tomorrow?” asked Fillan.
“That’s when Marceline and Alarick were going to take the whole thing public. Their secret friendship, the paper mill, everything. I’ve had the press release typed and ready for weeks. It was going to be the biggest story of the year.”
Ruby squirmed impatiently. “Tell us!”
Charlotte finished the onion ring with a decisive crunch. “They planned to convert the mill into the best Tooth and Claw training center in the country. All the latest equipment. Artificial turf. A new, retractable roof. Flood lighting. Fully climate controlled. A place to nurture the raw talent from the Narrows and give it a real home.”
Ruby sat back in disbelief. She’d never dreamed of anything so wonderful before, but now that Charlotte had painted the picture, she wanted it more than anything.
“Is that why Alarick bought the mill?” asked Fillan.
Charlotte nodded. “It was a childhood dream that he and Marceline cooked up when they were still playing in the streets, but it died when they had their falling out.”
“Alarick’s apology,” said Ruby. “So that’s what Marceline meant—he bought the building for her to prove that he was really sorry.”
Charlotte cinched her mouth into a half smile. “I don’t know if it makes up for everything he did to her, but it sure beats flowers and a box of chocolates.”
Fillan paused, a scoop of ice cream halfway to his mouth, dripping chocolate sauce onto the table. “So the plan wasn’t anything sinister at all. Alarick was doing something nice.”
“It would have transformed the Narrows,” said Charlotte. “New jobs, new investment. Teams would have come from all over the country to train there. I’d have loved to have something like that when I was a kid.”
“You played Tooth and Claw?” asked Ruby.
“Five years for the Riverside Runners,” said Charlotte with the ghost of a smile. “We never got to the finals, but it was fun while it lasted.”
“Why did you stop?” asked Fillan.
The smile faded. “There was no real future in it for me. The Gazette’s sports desk was hiring. The rest is history.”
Doubt began to gnaw at Ruby’s excitement. “If Alarick was building a new training center, then it can’t have been the reason for his murder,” she said. “The whole city would benefit, so why kill him for it?”
“That’s the question,” said Charlotte. “Maybe your friend Roselyn has some answers.”
The thought of Roselyn twisted in Ruby’s chest like a knife, and she had to gather her courage before she could speak again. “I don’t know what to think about Ros right now.”
“I think she’s mixed up in something very bad,” said Charlotte. “The only people in Netherburg who were supposed to know about the training center were Marceline, Alarick, and me. So why was Roselyn after the deed?”
“Someone must have told her about it,” said Fillan.
“Not me,” said Charlotte. “I’d never risk blowing my big story.”
“And she never spoke to Alarick,” said Ruby. “So it must have been Marceline.”
Charlotte sucked in her cheeks. “She didn’t tell any of the rest of you. And even if she did tell Roselyn, why steal the deed?”
Ruby examined the question from every direction she could think of but couldn’t arrive at an answer. Then Fillan spoke up.
“Maybe she was stealing them for someone else.”
They all looked at one another.
“It could be another journalist, trying to undermine my scoop,” said Charlotte. “They might have offered her plenty of cash.”
Ruby shook her head. “Ros doesn’t need money—her parents are loaded. She must have another reason.”
Silence settled over them, broken only by the clink of Fillan’s spoon in the depths of his sundae glass. Then he sat up, suddenly alert.
“There’s something we haven’t thought of,” he said. “The money to buy the paper mill and convert it into the training center. A project that big isn’t cheap, and Marceline isn’t exactly rich. So where were the funds coming from?”
“From Alarick,” said Charlotte. “He borrowed a fortune to finance the whole thing.”
Ruby cocked an eyebrow. “Why did he need to borrow it? Hadn’t he already made a fortune from Tooth and Claw?”
Charlotte chuckled. “Sure, and he’d spent it all, several times over. He was constantly in debt.”
Ruby reflected on the imported scent sticks and the pork chops in the Hunter’s Den. Everyone in Netherburg knew that Alarick lived in the largest mansion in the exclusive Hillsborough District—a far cry from the life of a Narrows street urchin. “Who did he borrow the money from?” she asked.
“A good question,” Charlotte replied. “Most of the banks had cut him off because he owed them so much.”
Ruby sifted through the fragments of knowledge they’d gathered, and one stood out clearly. “‘Pay your dues,’” she said. “What if the poisoned roses weren’t sent by a rival at all? What if they were from whoever lent him the money?”
Fillan’s tail wagged, slapping against the inside of the booth. “If he hadn’t repaid his debt, they might have decided to kill him.”
“It’s something to go on, at least,” said Charlotte. “Was the note signed?”
“No,” said Ruby. “There was just a logo. A flower inside a house. And it was all gold.”
Charlotte grinned, triumphant. “In that case, I know exactly where we need to go.”
21
SAY IT WITH FLOWERS
The Hillsborough District was built, as the name implied, on the slopes of Netherburg’s only hill. It was as much a park as a neighborhood, with lawns and gardens spilling down the hillside from the grand houses at the summit. At the foot of the hill was a cobbled plaza of small, exclusive shops, overhung with wisteria and ivy. They were dark and shuttered now, except for one.
“The Flower Haus,” said Charlotte, drawing her car up to the plaza’s entrance. “They did the flowers for my cousin’s wedding last year. Cost her a fortune. Very exclusive.”
Ruby and Fillan peered out from the car’s back seat. The shop front was painted white and gold, and the windows were filled with a rainbow of bouquets. A single light burned inside, illuminating the sign above the door: a golden rose within the outline of a house.
“This is definitely where the roses that killed Alarick came from,” said Fillan. “If we can get inside, we might find a record of who ordered them.”
Hope stirred in Ruby, but she couldn’t ignore a nagging doubt. “Why do they have a light on in the middle of the night?”
“Maybe someone forgot to switch it off,” said Charlotte.
Ruby and Fillan climbed out of the car, nervous to be in the open again.
“Sorry I can’t stay,” said Charlotte, leaning out of the window. “My editor’s waiting for my story on the paper mill attack, and my neck’s on the line if I don’t turn something in. But here.” She produced a business card from the glove compartment and handed it over. “That’s my office number. If you get stuck, call me.”
Ruby slipped the card into her pocket. “Thanks,” she said. “We need all the friends we can get right now.”
“You’re going to have more friends than you can count once we break this story wide open,” Charlotte replied. “The whole of Netherburg’s going to see the truth.” With a final wave, she pulled away into the night.
As her car’s engine faded into the distance, Ruby and Fillan dashed across the plaza to the shop and peered in through the windows.
“It looks deserted,” said Ruby. “We just need to find a way in.”
They started examining the door but were interrupted by the roar of an approaching car. Ruby knew instantly that it wasn’t Charlotte’s—the sound was deeper, like a throaty growl.
“Quick!”
A row of large privet bushes stood in pots along the sidewalk, and she and Fillan ducked behind one as the car swept into the plaza, its headlights painting the sleeping buildings. It was a big, expensive machine with long art deco fins, and it pulled to a stop outside the Flower Haus. Two people alighted from the rear seats and exchanged a word with the driver—a chauffeur, Ruby guessed—before the car pulled away again.
The light from the shop lit them clearly, and Ruby had to clamp a hand over her mouth to suppress her gasp of shock. Roselyn’s parents!
They walked without hesitation to the door, pushed it open, and stepped inside.
“It was unlocked all along,” said Fillan. He and Ruby scurried back to the shop, keeping low, and peeked in through the windows. “Do we follow them?”
“Of course,” she said.
As slowly and quietly as they could, they eased the door open and slipped inside.
The shop’s interior was decorated in white and gold and dotted with huge vases that overflowed with tropical flowers. In the half-light, they provided ideal cover, and the sharp clacking of Roselyn’s mother’s stilettos against the tiled floor masked the sound of their footsteps.
From their hiding places, Ruby and Fillan watched the pair walk to the back of the shop. As if out of thin air, a sleek gray wolf appeared from behind a large cactus and intercepted them. She wore a Flower Haus apron and carried a clipboard.
“Names?” she said.
Roselyn’s father took a small step back, and his wife clutched his hand in both of hers. “You know perfectly well who we are,” he said. “Let us in.”
“Names,” the wolf replied.
“Mr. and Mrs. Brandt. Now hurry up, we don’t have much time.”
The wolf, however, seemed to have all the time in the world. “And the purpose of your visit?”
Ruby watched an angry red blotch creep up Mr. Brandt’s neck from inside his shirt. “Must we do this every time?”
“The shop’s closed to customers,” said the wolf. “Unless you’re here for something … specific.”
Mrs. Brandt silenced her husband with a look before he could vent his frustration any further. “We’re here for the flower-arranging class,” she said.
The wolf consulted her clipboard. “We’ve been waiting for you. Follow me.” She led them out of sight behind a rack of terra-cotta pots. There was a whisper, a click, and the room fell silent.
Ruby waited a few seconds before breaking cover. The shop looked deserted. “Where did they go?”
“I don’t know,” Fillan replied. “But something tells me they’re not really here for a flower-arranging class.” He hurried to the shop counter and lifted a leather-bound ledger from underneath it. “This looks like a register of sales.”
“Anything about Alarick in there?”
Fillan scoured the last few pages and shook his head. “Nothing. Perhaps whoever sent the bouquet didn’t want a paper trail.”
“All the more reason to find out what Ros’s parents are up to.”
At that instant, light blazed in through the windows as another car swung into the plaza. It roared to a stop outside, and the two of them only just had time to duck behind the counter before the shop door burst open.
“Kelina!”
It was a man’s voice, and it tugged at Ruby’s memory. Where had she heard it before? Crawling on her hands and knees, she poked her head out around the side of the counter.
Jarvin, the man she had seen confronting Breck in Fangbrook Market, stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by a halo of smoke from his cigar. With a cold shock, Ruby got a proper look at the yellow flower in his lapel—a Wild Wood Rose.
Jarvin tapped his foot impatiently until the female wolf reappeared. “Is everything ready?” he asked.
“The Brandts just arrived,” she replied. “Everyone’s waiting for you.”
Jarvin pulled a face, as if he had just tasted something that disagreed with him. “The Brandts too? What’s the mood like down there?”
“Hostile,” Kelina replied. “You’d better not keep them waiting.”
He stubbed the cigar out in the nearest vase and followed her to the rear of the shop. “This Alarick thing keeps getting worse for us,” he said. Then there was the same whisper and click that Ruby had heard before, and silence returned.
“That cigar stinks,” said Fillan, waving his hand in front of his nose. “And that’s coming from someone who just spent half an evening on a garbage scow.”
Ruby barely noticed the cloud of smoke as she plowed through it toward the back of the shop. “I saw that man at the market, which means the Oma Gang are here.” Her body trembled with excitement. “We’re close to the answers we need. I know it.”
Fillan’s fur bristled. “Are we sure we want to find them? The Oma Gang are bad news, Ruby. Maybe we should just call Charlotte.”
She ignored him and started exploring the rear of the shop. There were no doors or windows, just rows of shelves, stacked with potted plants of varying sizes. “It’s like they vanished,” she said.
Fillan sighed, shut his eyes, and sniffed tentatively. “Smells don’t vanish.” He approached the wall, letting his nose guide him. “They passed through here.”
“How?”
“There must be a hidden door. Look for a switch.”
He started lifting pots from the shelves. Ruby followed suit, until she found one that refused to budge.
“This one’s fixed to the shelf,” she said.
Fillan examined it, then gave it a twist. With a soft, familiar click, a section of the wall whispered open. A narrow corridor, richly decorated and carpeted, lay beyond.
“Amazing!” Ruby slipped through, impatient to get moving. “Where do you think it leads?”
“Somewhere dangerous, probably.”
She reached out a hand and he took it. “Marceline wasn’t scared of danger,” she said, leading him. “Let’s make her proud.”
* * *
The park opposite Saint Gummarus’s Hospital lay in darkness and silence. The reporters had long since left in pursuit of Akako, who had vaulted from the tree, over their heads, and hit the lawn running. They left only trampled flowers and muddy footprints behind, while Akako had left the old man’s cap that Ruby had swapped with her. It had fallen from her head during her escape, and the reporters had trampled it underfoot without even noticing. It was barely recognizable now, flattened and shabby.
